Different Colored Cigarette Packs, Same Deadly Diseases
Share this
The landmark tobacco legislation President Obama signed last year banned tobacco companies from using descriptors like "light," "ultralight," "low tar" and "mild" on cigarette labels starting June 22. An FDA guidance document points out that when tobacco companies introduced "light" and "ultralight" cigarettes in the 1960s and 1970s, the implicit message (pdf) in their advertising was that these products were safer and healthier than regular-strength cigarettes. People believed it, and the same belief persists today, as many many smokers still mistakenly believe that "light" and "low tar" cigarettes are safer and cause fewer health problems than full-flavor cigarettes. While tobacco companies will no longer be able to describe their products using misleading words, they aren't too worried. Instead, over the last year or so, they have simply changed the colors of the packs to convey the same message, eventually training people to recognize "light" and "low tar" cigarettes by color instead of words on the pack. All Salem cigarette packages, for example, used to be the same shade of green, but now Salem "lights" are a lighter-colored green and white, and "ultralight" cigarette packs will be pale gray and white. R.J. Reynolds argues that the "smoking experience" is the cigarettes' appeal, not safety, and that different-colored packages will ensure that smokers can still get the taste they desire from cigarettes. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California) thinks differently, saying the industry has just found a way to evade the law and continue misleading consumers.
- 13817 reads
Printer-friendly version- Add new comment
- permalink
Today's popular content
- Wisconsin’s System Increasingly Rigged Against the Unemployed (56)
- Resources for Investigating ALEC/NRA Gun Bills (45)
- The Health Care Industry vs. Health Reform (31)
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food" (27)
- Harold Camping's Global Apocalypse PR Campaign (23)
- About ALEC Exposed (23)
- More Corporations Drop Off ALEC's Conference Brochure (19)
- PBS Killed Wisconsin Uprising Documentary "Citizen Koch" To Appease Koch Brothers (17)
- Live Reporting from the Wisconsin Protests (15)
- Dear WWII Vets, Forget About the Monument, They Are Gunning for Your Social Security (14)
Readers' Comments
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: pbarnrob
-
Submitted by: EarlBowden
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: AndrewG
Comments
Smoking is bad, but
Everyone knows smoking is bad, gambling is bad, but it's still a freedom of choice. Just like I like trade forex, but the government wants to squeeze out all the small individual traders but tightening the laws. Too much control.
But I do agree, that at some point the goverment needs to step in and write the rules for most people, since not everyone is as educated and smart about things that happens around them.
life is stressful
people will ALWAYS turn to chemistry. i don't think people are ready to deal with the fallout from black market cigarettes.
Nice post. It's true.
Nice post. It's true. Cigarette is harmful for our health. My father used to smoke 1 pack a day. I was confuse about this, I advice him many time. At the end he was given smoking so his cancer disease was decrease. He feel healthy now. I think everyone shouldn't smoking.
Smoking Kills ..
Smoking Kills .. This is serious! its not about the type of cigarette that you prefer to smoke .. even if you take the light one it still can harm you .. Nice Article :))
Keep it Up! :))
Ridiculous.....
My dad smokes "light" Marlboro cigarettes tells me that smoking "lights" were better than smoking the regular ones. I just do not know how they get the concepts of smoking = cancer. It does not matter if they are light or heavy. I just think every cigarette company should just be labeled as regular to not leave the impression that smoking lights is better than regular.
Ridiculous...
Light or regular one thing is known: smoking kills ! Now the question is why most of smokers keep on smoking although they are convinced that they are destroying their health !!
The light is harm your health better than 'normal' !
I read somewhere that 'light' means smaller piece of harmful material so it will be sit on the throat instead of lung.
The big problem is that a cancer of throat will come earlier (10-15 y) than cancer of lung.
I don't now that is true or not, but it is frightening !
Cigarettes are unsafe anyway
I think the use of different cloured packs in other to make the public believe that a particular brand of cigarette is safer than the other is not acceptable. Cigarettes are harmful and this should not be taken with levity
Whatever color they do on
Whatever color they do on the packaging it doesn't matter as long as it contains nicotine. Anyway, that's why we are addicted to smoke because of nicotine right?
We know for a fact that it is dangerous to our health yet we still love to smoke.
The advertising regulations
The advertising regulations are so lax. Many people take advertising under far too much authority. Similar to with cigarrettes the same is true in the healthy food industry and how companies are allowed to put out high sugar fattening foods. They then heavily market them as 'low fat' even though they have as much sugar as a can of coke in!